Faster than a speeding midge

Perhaps, like your almanackist, you have been in a plane or fast moving train, or even in a car, and the realisation has struck that if you were to drop something, like Newton's apocryphal apple, or Galileo's stone at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, it would fall at your feet and not some metres behind you. It's rather odd, and I still don't fully understand why.

It was a bit like that feeling at the north end of Sandy today. In a small pocket there you will find a lot of biting midges (Culicoides spp., I believe) flying around, and I walked into them. With an air temp in the high 20s, and humidity in the 60s, it's an ideal day for midges, but a sticky day for peoples, and the tiny insects can be quite annoying.

So I ran. Not as one would from a swarm of bees, but I ran.

Now here's the amazing thing: I'm a pretty fast runner (not that I ran my fastest), but it took me 200 metres to shake them. I was halfway down the beach and they were a few still buzzing around my head. OK, how do they do that?

The population of midges in that place near where the creek empties into the ocean, has skyrocketed in recent days after the rain because of the nutrients that wash into the waterway, particularly from residences. Unhealthy waterways and wetlands mean more midges and mozzies; another reason to keep our Hearns Lake foreshores safe from human occupation. So run, don't walk, to find ways to preserve and restore aqueous environments, wherever you live.

Reduce Mosquito & Midge Populations – Restore a Wetland!